MRS. MOLESWORTH'S CHRISTMAS STORY.
ONE more of Mrs. Molesworth's pictures of child-life serves to remind us how much we already owe her ; and we are the readier to acknowledge our debt, because, notwithstanding her popu- larity with her readers of the nursery and schoolroom, her older critics do not, perhaps, discern how unique and valuable is her gift. However earnest in the cause of education from their point of view, few grown-up people sympathise with the conditions of childish imagination and childish reason while they are in haste to flood childish memories with fluent rubbish that leaves no trace except in its weakening effect. " How does Mrs. Moles- • Us: an Old-Fashioned Story. By Mrs. Molesworth. London : Macmillan. 188.5. worth know exactly what we say ?" asked a little friend of ours fresh from the study of Hermy ; " nobody else does !" The question at once raises points recently discussed with some heat by votaries of the "New Naturalism," and by the admirers of old-fashioned romance ; and it is curious to see how fiction, as a contribution to social science, or as an instructive mirror, or as a pedagogue of any sort, is repudiated by children. Their taste is vindicated by Mrs. Molesworth's success ; and we perceive that analysis of unheroic life is not truly of chief importance in narrative. Excellent as are her photographs of higher class child-life, their exactness is not the quality which enthrals her readers. Within the range of nursery facts, she- knows how to gratify that craving for romance which lifts realism out of muddy ways, and which has its first and final cause in the deepest instincts of human nature. Her books are not written at, but for, children, and she succeeds in satisfying their active fancy within the limits of their experience, without forcing on them the tragi-comedy of older life, as is so generally attempted. She idealises what is to them real, without strain on their infantine generosity of faith, or shock to their conscience. Therefore, in her books are no caricatures of either children or parents, and no grotesque situations, such as, for instance, in Helen's Babies or the Bad Boy's Diary, books never really popular with young: children, who have not yet suffered enough of the pain of exist- ence to take refuge in its humour. Mrs. Molesworth ministers to their good faith, and in her slightest plots she makes us feel that the best value of fiction is its recognition of our sense that,. in an ideal world, triumphant heroes should be worthy of their triumph. How keen is a child's appreciation of a good plot and its ingenious compensations, and how eagerly children look for the "divine far-off event" which shall smooth all incongruities ! They- are very conscious of the vast harmony in which they are tremulous' wavelets, and which seems sometimes more audible to them than to us. The very urgency of their imagination demands immediate materialisation of the objects of their faith, and they suffer no- escape of an author into Doubtland, for the " perhaps " and the- " who knows ?" are as detestable to children as would be the smile of the " heathen Chinee." They reject what is morbid, and even prefer the crimes of Punch to the agonies of "little Nell.' They have not loved, as it was meant they should, the utilitarian successes of Miss Edgeworth's " Harry," though they enjoy her plots as plots. Obvious moralities earn the grimace that follows- a dose of physic hidden in jam. They are not natural food ; and children, excellent judges, clamour for stories where the widest issues are raised. The justice they admire must reach farther than inflicting neat punishments and giving sugar-plums. Book children loved by children must " trail clouds of glory" that hint at immeasurable possibilities of ideal events. So they value- the writer who can fashion stories for them out of facts as they —not the elders—see them, and that echo their vague thoughts as a shell echoes for them the sea.
Mrs. Molesworth has established a standard of criticism in the. difficult task of judging for children, and by it becomes evident the sad unsuitableness of most books set before our little folk just when they are receiving their first literary impressions. In shaping his or her action, the boy or girl is probably most in- fluenced by the reading done between the ages of twelve and adolescence ; but in laying the foundation of character and right feeling the quality of the fiction imbibed daring earlier years is of greater importance. A bookseller's shop at this time of year shows the mass of books provided for young people- nearly ready to take their first flights from the nest ; but how little of the best sort is provided for nursery imaginations, and how few writers are in sympathy with the eager but trusting souls which are as wax to receive the first imprint from their elders ! Silly and vulgar stuff, chaff at the best, and question- able wit outgrown by drawing-room society, is relegated to the nursery with high-backed chairs and other lumber. Far better was the study by our htheri of their half-dozen classics, Robinson Crusoe, the Pilgrim's Progress, Gulliver, and Don Quix)te. The difference of the old and new supply is- aptly illustrated by the new American 2Esop as com- pared to the fabler of our infancy. Mrs. Moles worth does not provide such strong meat as his ; but she is so entirely sympathetic with the quality of very young children's imagination that in her hands the story of a school- room or nursery day becomes of powerful interest by its unexpressed even more than by its obvious truthfulness. Children recognise her " Carrots," and her " Herr Baby," and her twine, the " Us " of this last volume, as true comrades, so that they not only take part in the narrated doings of those little people, but carry them into their own lives and make friends of them. Us, which has led us into these general remarks
on Mrs Molesworth's work, is perhaps not so representative of her special genius as other of her stories. She has varied her scene, and its accessories are of an older date, when Kate Green- away's figures really existed, when gipsies could steal children
with impunity, and when no doubt there were Mother Hubbards in every village. Us purports to be a story told by an ancient brother and sister of their childhood some eighty years ago ;
but the touches of contemporary colour cannot conceal the delightful fact that the twins are brother and sister to the" Little Waifs ;" and the " door-mat " terrier Toby,' who " retrieves " them in the last chapter, is of as modern a breed as the Kennel Club could desire. We are inclined, indeed, to think that children themselves are a modern discovery, and of them certainly Mrs Molesworth is one of the keenest discoverers ; for who, as she, has rendered the unexpected value of infantine ideas, and the quaint results of infantine attempts to run half inspired intui- tions, in the stiff mould of grown-up language P We do not greatly care for the gipsies, or the other personages who surround the radiant twins and cause them such terrible trouble, but every word " Us " say is an echo from the happy light of childish conscience and motive. In their baby
nobility of faith and courage, and love and honour, they pass through ten days of ugly and mean environment as sunrays pass through troubled water, which breaks but cannot defile the light. That is all the story, which gains its simple dignity by the exquisite ethics of " Us " in their trials. By its happy end- ing the author indicates once more the insistence on ideal justice which makes children dislike analysis of pain or naughti- ness as in themselves interesting. It is not easy to detach suitable quotations from work as smoothly complete as is Mrs. Molesworth's ; but the working of baby reason and imagination is well suggested in the opening sorrow of the story, when, find- ing they could not finish their bowls of bread and milk, " Us " gave the remains of their breakfast to Toby ' surreptitiously. On this occasion, reversing the sequence of .Eden, the boy was
first in the transgression
" ' I don't see,' be says, 'that it's naughty of us not to eat more when us isn't hungry for more. I think it would be like little pigs to eat more than they want.'—' But,' objected the other twin, Pamela, ns haven't eaten as much as us can, Duke, for you know downstairs we could eat grandmamma's treat.'—' I'm afraid,—yes, I'm afraid, Duke, that us is dainty, like Master Frederick and Miss Lucy in Amusing Tales, and nurse says it is so very naughty to be dainty, when so many poor children would fink our bread-and-milk such a great treat.' The arrival of hungry Toby closed the debate ; the bowls were cleared. For a moment or two Pamela's face expressed nothing but approval. But gradually a little cloud stole over it. What shall ns say if grandpapa and grandmamma ask if us have eaten all our bread-and-milk ?' she said.—Duke considered. 'Us can say the bowls are quite empty. That won't be a story.' "
Conscience, however, spurred by the fact that one of the bowls "got brokened," pursued the pair, until later in the day, and alone in the garden, instead of running to meet their grandpapa
and grandmamma, Duke says,— "'Sister, I am so midderable that I think if there was a big sea near here I would go into it and be drowned.'—`Brower !' ejaculated Pamela.—' Yes, sister,' he continued, it would be the best thing. For if I was drownded quite dead they'd all be so sorry that then you could tell them about the bowl, and Biddy would not be scolded, —and—and you could say it was far most my fault, you know, for is was, and then they wouldn't be very angry with you. Yes,' he re- peated solemnly, 'it would be the best thine—By this time Pamela was completely dissolved in tears—tears of indignation as well as of grief. Bruvver,' she began again, how can you say that ? Us has always been togevver. How can you fink I would ever say it was most your fault, not if you was ever so drownded ?' "
In this mood they were enticed craftily by a gipsy to his en- campment by a promise of a new bowl ; and we wish we had space to quote the account of their feelings, as, once in his power, the man hurried them on, and they were under a "strange sort of fascination that even very wise people might not find it easy to explain."
"Though poor little Pamela, still, through all her stumbles and tumbles, held tightly up before her the corners of her apron, con- taining the bite of the unlucky bowl, and Bake, on his side, still firmly clutched his precious money box, I do not believe either of them had by this time any very clear remembrance of why they were laden with these queer burdens, or what was the object of the strange and painful expedition."
They had, indeed, experience of " bypath meadow "and its issues, and we anticipate many a thrill for the children who read their adventures this winter. We once more congratulate them that they have in Mrs. Moleaworth a safe and sympathetic friend
who will supply for them the links with the mysterious world outside their nurseries, and help them to take their first measurement of their fellow-children without criticism of the elders. Parents have reason to be even more grateful to a writer who has a gift of insight such as Mrs. Molesworth's. She is one of the few who imagine something of what is folded up in the heart of a child. She may be trusted, as few other writers for the young can be, to cause no canker in the bud of earliest youth,—so far more dangerous than would be a dozen earwigs in the unfolding flower.
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